Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (48 page)

It was Geoffrey's humble beginnings that made
Anne Boleyn's social position less than stellar. Her mother Lady
Elizabeth Howard's line was above reproach, but her merchant
great-grandfather was the excuse Cardinal Wolsey used when he
stopped her from marrying Lord Henry Percy, for whom she was not
considered "suitable".

Anne's bedroom at Hever Castle, her childhood
home, has a fireplace, a stone staircase in one corner, and her
headboard propped against a wall (the entire bed would have taken
up too much room to allow tourists to enter). The first words out
of the lips of everyone entering the room are, "But it's so
small!"

There is no proof of the order in which the
Boleyn (or "Bullen") siblings were born. Various references each
prefer a different birth order, and no two agree. The most
supportable and convincing evidence, noted in "Anne Boleyn" by E.
W. Ives, favored a birth order of Mary, then Anne, then George.
(There were two additional Boleyn infants who died.)

This book also favors a birth year of 1501
(versus 1507), a date that is further supported by an example of
Anne Boleyn’s handwriting in 1514 (shown in "The Rise and Fall of
Anne Boleyn" by Retha M. Warnicke). The handwriting sample is
unmistakably that of a young adult because it has small, tightly
controlled and evenly formed letters. A child of seven, no matter
how intelligent, would only have the mechanical ability to write in
a large, uneven scrawl.

Please visit
http://www.nellgavin.com/boleyn_links/boleynhandwriting.htm
for a comparison of Anne's handwriting in 1514 to that of a seven
year old child. Also see
http://www.nellgavin.com/boleyn_links/boleynbirthyear.htm
for information and speculation about her year of birth.

Sixteenth century Jesuit historian, Nicholas
Sanders, wrote that Anne Boleyn was raped by one of her father’s
officials at Hever when she was seven. Only Alison Weir even
mentions this in passing, but she then dismisses the rumor as
untrue and states that Sanders was responsible for "some of the
wilder inaccuracies that gained currency about Anne Boleyn,"
including that one. What is interesting to me is that the rumor was
specific as to her age, the location, and the identity of the
perpetrator, which makes me question if it may actually have been
based on fact. If so, her presence in England at age seven would
conclusively eliminate 1507 as a possible birth year because she
wrote the above-mentioned letter from the Netherlands in 1514,
where she had been since 1513. Even without proof that the rape
actually took place, the details of the rumor indicate that the
historian presumed or knew that Anne was born earlier than
1507.

There has never been any hard evidence, even
in the midst of rampant speculation and very close scrutiny, that
Anne was ever intimate with anyone but her husband. Considering the
times, premarital chastity was highly improbable. What is known
about Anne is that she a) was not a virgin when she married (only
Karen Lindsey suggested she was), b) conceived immediately after
commencing relations with Henry, perhaps even with their first
encounter and, c) was regularly pregnant thereafter. Her obvious
fertility would not have allowed for much illicit premarital sex
leaving the child molestation theory still open to explain her lost
virginity, particularly for a work of fiction. The two men she was
most likely to have been with, Lord Henry Percy and Sir Thomas
Wyatt, both survived the accusations and the interrogation prior to
her execution for adultery. Whether this is because they were
innocent or useful to the Crown is unknown.

Folklore has always given Anne six fingers.
There isn’t much evidence to support this legend, or to suggest
that she really had a huge "wen" on her neck. All her biographies
concluded that she probably did not have either one but there is no
solid proof either way. George Wyatt, grandson of Thomas Wyatt and
one of Anne's very few friendly biographers, stated she had a
"double nail" on one of her fingers, and suggested that she had a
large Adam's apple "like a man's". Even with these imperfections -
and despite the fact that she was not beautiful in the conventional
sense - she was considered one of the most attractive women at
court.

Anne spent about two years in the Netherlands
(the "low countries") as a member of the court of Margaret of
Austria, who had developed a friendship with Anne's father, Thomas
Boleyn, while he was serving as a diplomat. The finest musicians of
the day were centered there, and it is thought that Anne's musical
training began here - or at least, her enthusiasm for music
did.

Anne was said to have been an impressive
musician and songwriter, and some sources suggested her melodies
may have borrowed characteristics from Spanish music (Henry VIII's
first wife, Katherine of Aragon, was Spanish, and her court
probably lent that influence). Anne played several instruments,
including the lute, harp and virginals. She probably also played
the recorder, which was very popular during her lifetime. She was
renowned for her singing voice as well.

To the best of anyone's knowledge, none of
Anne’s songs survive, except for one, "O Death, Rock Me Asleepe",
with music written by her chaplain after her death. However, the
source of both the lyrics and the music is in question. It is only
known that the poem was found in the Tower immediately after Anne’s
death, and that it was later put to music. A CD containing that
song can be purchased at www.leonarda.com.

After leaving the Netherlands, Anne moved to
France where she lived as a member of the French court for several
years before returning to England in 1522 when, according to a
biography of Henry VIII written by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, she
was 20 years old.

Sir Thomas Wyatt, who wrote about his love
for Anne Boleyn in several poems, is credited with making the
sonnet popular in England. He was imprisoned under suspicion of
having committed adultery with Anne, witnessed her execution from
his prison cell window, and wrote a poem "The Death of Anne Boleyn"
about that as well. His family's bribes later freed him.

Anne Boleyn fell in love with, and was
secretly betrothed to Lord Henry Percy, whose bloodline was
superior to hers. The love affair ended when they were forbidden to
marry because of Anne's "inferior" lineage (her mother's line was
impressive, but her father's family was in trade). Henry VIII did
not allow them to say goodbye, in fact, Alison Weir mentions that
Anne’s parents locked her in her room to prevent her from trying to
contact Percy, as she was frantic to do.

Percy did send a note to Anne begging her to
never love anyone else, and history suggests she gamely made the
effort, as Henry soon found out. How soon is another matter open to
conjecture. Some references suggest that he did not o
penly pursue Anne for as long as one to
four years after her betrothal to Percy was broken.

Others mention that they had had a courtly
flirtation for years, and that it may have grown serious from
Henry’s perspective even as he kept Anne’s sister Mary as his
mistress years before he openly pursued Anne. However, exact dates
are unknown.

Either way, Henry VIII found Anne Boleyn
initially unresponsive to his advances - she was the first woman
ever to tell the king "no" - and he pursued her insistently for
years before finally winning her.

It was precisely this independent, outspoken,
willful spirit that both attracted him in the beginning, and was an
affront to him after they married.

According to Karen Lindsey, only one person
suggested that the betrothal of Percy and Anne Boleyn was broken at
Henry’s command rather than Cardinal Wolsey’s (he was the one who
officially opposed their marriage). However, that one person was
George Cavendish, a close and trusted servant of Wolsey, and a
reliable source. Lindsey states it would have been in keeping with
Henry’s personality to take measures to shift the blame to Wolsey
in order to deflect Anne’s resulting anger.

After his betrothal to Anne was broken, Lord
Percy was immediately forced to marry a woman who had been
betrothed to him in childhood. The marriage was a disaster. Percy
left no children, suffered from stomach problems, and died only
months after Anne's execution.

Anne was notoriously supportive of religious
upstarts, read - and defended - censored writings, and was
considered to be the "patron saint" of Protestants, who were being
persecuted at the time. Henry VIII broke with Rome and formed the
Church of England in order to legitimize their marriage when the
Pope would not grant him an annulment from Katherine of Aragon.
Ironically, Anne still apparently worshipped as a Catholic until
her death.

She convinced Henry that the Bible should be
translated into English and made available to common people instead
of just the clergy.

According to Alison Weir, no religious
heretics were burned at the stake during the period of time that
Anne was queen. However, Henry VIII had heretics burnt both before
and after her tenure. We can only speculate on how many lives Anne
saved.

Anne distributed a fortune in charity among
the English people. George Wyatt (grandson of Thomas Wyatt)
estimated that she distributed more than £1500 per year to the poor
alone. I don't have figures for living wages during the reign of
Henry VIII. However, by the reign of Elizabeth I, a family's
acceptable wage was two pounds ten shillings
per
year
. Acceptable wages were less than this during Anne's
lifetime because, from Anne's reign to the Elizabethan period, food
prices rose by 120%. £1500 per year went quite far in 1532 to
1536.

So based on this, we can estimate that
thousands and thousands of people received assistance of some sort
from Anne throughout her reign. She also sewed clothing with her
own hands for distribution to the poor, and was known on at least
one occasion to have personally tended to the ill on her travels.
Few of her biographies mention her charitable acts at any length,
and these were also not much publicized during her own
lifetime.

Anne was considered by most of her
contemporaries to be extremely intelligent, witty and charming. In
addition, it appears that she had a rather droll, sometimes
twisted, dark sense of humor. A sense of humor like that can be
easily misinterpreted, and in Anne’s case, probably was. An example
of this might be Anne's reaction to the protests against King
Henry's choosing her as his queen. For a short time she took as her
motto, and had emblazoned on her livery, a Latin phrase, "Ainsi
sera, groigne qui groigne," which translated into "Grumble all you
like, this is how it’s going to be." A few weeks later, the phrase
was removed. Most biographies interpreted that act as "defiant" and
"arrogant". However, my interpretation and reaction to it was
completely different. Each time I saw it mentioned, I laughed out
loud. I viewed it as an irreverent and cheeky means of using humor
to express exasperation and to make a very valid point about all
the talk and complaints. After she made that point by use of her
servants, who were essentially all walking sandwich boards
advertising her opinion on their livery coats - and without having
harmed anyone - she removed the motto. Based on other information
about her, that kind of humor would seem to be in keeping with her
personality.

Her most famous quote was spoken prior to
her execution when she was amiably chatting to someone about her
executioner. Reassuring the friend (and probably herself) that all
would go well, she said, "I hear he’s quite good. And I have a very
small neck!" Then she touched her neck and laughed "greatly". She
also referred to herself in the tower as "Queen Lackhead". She was
said to always enjoy a good laugh even, it would seem, at her own
tragic end.

There are some theories about the health of
Henry VIII. One was that he had scurvy because of his notoriously
meat-heavy diet. Another is that he, his siblings and his
offspring, suffered from diabetes. Still another was that he
suffered from syphilis. His body was last exhumed in 1812 before
any conclusive tests were available. However, there was an epidemic
of syphilis in Europe during the 1500’s, and the symptoms of
syphilis listed by The New Complete Medical and Health Encyclopedia
(published by Lexicon) somewhat match the health ailments Henry
VIII experienced in his lifetime. In particular, the changes in his
personality and mental state from the start to the end of his reign
make syphilis possible. Katherine of Aragon, his first wife, was
known to have suffered from a "mysterious female ailment" that
might possibly have been related to infection. In addition, infants
born to infected mothers can be stillborn, die shortly after birth,
or suffer health ailments that can lead to death years later. Henry
VIII admittedly had some trouble fathering viable infants, and
produced children with all of the aforementioned results. Syphilis
is one possible cause. However, there is nothing more substantial
than speculation to support this theory at the present time.